A 2020 report by McKinsey & Company shows that companies with the highest gender, racial, and ethnic diversity financially perform up to 35% better than similar companies. This demonstrates the importance of creating a culture where employees of different backgrounds feel seen, heard, and valued.

Employee diversity in race, religion, national origin, age, gender, ability, and other characteristics helps your company attract and retain the best talent. This increases innovation, productivity, and your bottom line.

As an HR professional, you have a direct impact on the diversity of your workforce. This is why you must begin taking action now to elevate diversity in your organization.

Implement these tips to increase diversity throughout your company.

Set Diversity Goals

Create goals to increase diversity in your workforce. These may involve representation, talent acquisition, promotion, or retention. Then, develop key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your progress toward these goals.

For instance, you might compare how certain groups are represented in your company with market or industry demographics. Then, set KPIs to elevate representation by job level or position or in general. After that, develop sourcing and interviewing goals to hire employees from underrepresented groups.

You could examine the average employee tenure by demographic to see which groups tend to stay. Also, look at exit surveys to determine why these groups often go. Then, use your findings to develop retention goals for these groups.

You can look at the job level and promotion rate by demographic and tenure. Then, reset your KPIs so underrepresented groups can advance.

Involve Leadership

Company leaders must actively participate in planning and implementing diversity goals. Since leaders provide input for hiring decisions, they play key roles in attaining desired outcomes.

Minimize Bias

Reduce the implicit bias in your hiring process. This increases the diversity of your job applicants and new hires.

For instance, use gender-neutral language in your job descriptions. Focus more on the desired qualifications and outcomes than experience. Also, ask all candidates for a role the same questions. Use a scoring rubric to objectively compare the answers and make hiring decisions.

Want to Add to Your Team?

Setting diversity goals and KPIs, involving leadership in planning and implementation, and minimizing bias in hiring help increase diversity in your workforce. Increasing diversity elevates innovation and profitability.

When the time comes to add HR professionals to your team, partner with Arlington Resources. Learn more today.